Pan con Tomate and Calçots
This weekend: Two Catalan favourites - 'tomato toast' and 'roasted scallions'
One of my favourite go-to easy meals is one that is equally yumbums for breakfast, lunch or tea (the dinner kind, not the liquid kind).
As we celebrate the Catalan hermit Magi in Tarragona this week, let’s take a quick squizzy at a couple of Catalunya’s iconic dishes: Tomato Toast and Calçots.
When I first arrived in Spain, Barcelona was my introduction to authentic Spanish food. But it wasn’t here I had my first experience with tomato toast.
It was when I had reached Seville down in Andalucia a month later that I was served two toasted slices of crunchy fresh bread, a little bowl of fresh pureed tomato, a mini bottle of virgin olive oil and a salt grinder for breakfast.
To be honest, I can’t remember if the arrangement came with a clove of garlic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had. Once the ingredients had been assembled, tomato bread became my fave breakfast and since then I made it on a regular basis.
These days I prefer my muesli, kefir milk and fruit to get me going in the morning, but tomato toast is also great as a lunch or light dinner. Topped with Iberian ham (jamon), cured cheese (Manchego, for example), anchovies, or anything you think goes well with tomato, turns the dish into a heartier meal.
So let me share a simple recipe for tomato toast that even the most cooking-impaired among us can create.
Get yourself a fresh, rustic, wide, European-style crunchy loaf of bread. And slice it on the diagonal. Toast it in a toaster or pan.
Grate a ripe tomato, preferably one that is not too watery.
Rub the toast generously with a peeled clove of garlic.
Dribble some virgin olive oil over the toast.
Spread the grated tomato over the toast and season with flakes of rock salt.
(Note: some people prefer to drizzle the oil over the tomato for a stronger taste, but I find it drips off easily and you end up having to suck it off your fingers. Also, by adding it first, it soaks into the bread, making it soft and juicy.)
Tip: This dish will no doubt become a favourite of yours too, so a way to make the process even faster is to puree the tomato, oil and garlic to a sauce consistency that you can top on the toast each morning.
Calçots
The city of Valls in Tarragona is the birthplace of the popular Catalan dish known as calçots - a vegetable somewhere between a sweet onion and a leek. They are eaten during large get-togethers called calçotadas where they are barbequed over open flames and served with a romesco-type pepper sauce.
We once had an opportunity to try these vegetables at a friend’s barbeque outside Madrid and they were delicious. You peel the blackened skins off the calçot, dip it in the sauce and try to eat it in one gulp without making too much of a mess (hence the bibs). Washed down with red wine or Cava, they make an excellent addition to any barbeque or campfire.
As I don’t have access to this vegetable in England, or a barbeque in my kitchen, I found some baby leeks in Sainsburys and decided to give them a go in the oven. They’re sweeter and more tender than leeks and made a pleasant appetizer served with jamon.